In recent years, there has been enormous growth in Internet and online shopping and other online consumer transactions. Additionally, many “regular” businesses have created websites to promote their products and services. Businesses, especially e-commerce businesses, have the need to attract customers to their websites. One common way to attract Internet customers to a website is to advertise on other websites.
In the Internet environment, a typical advertisement on a website is what is known as a banner advertisement. A banner advertisement can be an advertisement that appears towards the top or bottom of a webpage on a website. Microsoft Press, Computer Dictionary, 3rd Edition, defines a banner to be a section of a webpage containing an advertisement that is usually an inch or so tall and spans the width of the webpage. The banner contains a link to the advertiser's website. Thus, a banner advertisement has an webpage associated with it, which is usually the webpage at the website of the advertiser. When a user selects the banner advertisement, for example, by clicking on the banner advertisement, the user is taken to the webpage associated with the advertisement. That is, when a user clicks on the banner advertisement, the webpage specified in the banner advertisement is downloaded to the user's computer for viewing by the user's Internet browser program.
In this document, the term “interact with” will be used as a generic description of the process of selecting or clicking on an advertisement or other interactive image in order to be taken to a webpage (or other output display) or to have displayed further information regarding or associated with the advertisement.
There are other types of advertisements that can be utilized on the Internet. Presently, banner advertisements are one of the most common forms of Internet advertising.
The value of Internet advertising to a business can be seen in the following two examples. Juno Online is a “free” email service and is said to be the second largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the United States. It is financially supported through electronic advertising. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,809,242 to D. E. Shaw et. al. See also U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,838,790 and 5,848,397. Geocities is a popular service that hosts websites for “free”. It is financially supported by advertisers. Each user who creates a “free” website that is hosted by Geocities agrees to allow Geocities to include banner advertisements on the user's website.
However, with the growth of Internet advertisements, and because banner and other Internet advertisements are becoming quite common, Internet users have become more discerning as to which advertisements they react to. Accordingly, the “click-through” rate for many Internet advertisements is decreasing. (The click-through rate is the number of users who select the advertisement by clicking on it divided by the total number of users to whom the advertisement is displayed.)
As a result, there is a need for an incentive scheme to reward users who interact with banner and other Internet advertisements.
Various promotional programs have been implemented to attract consumers to websites. For example, cybergold.com has a scheme that allows users to establish a cybergold account. Points will accrue in the account when the user performs various functions, such as visiting a website, interacting with an advertisement or purchasing a product. These points can be redeemed to purchase products. Netcentives.com is a promotional program that allows users to earn points for completing activities on websites. Users can earn points for doing things like purchasing products, downloading software and completing surveys. These types of schemes have had limited success due to their complexity, the need to pre-register and establish an account and the difficulty of redeeming points for products.
Electronic coupon systems have been proposed as a marketing tool. One example is the marketing network and process described in a patent by Golden et. al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,761,648. However, that system has a number of deficiencies. The coupons are not associated with advertisements, and so do not in themselves attract users to interact with an advertisement on an Internet site. All coupons are stored on a service database for selection. Thus, each coupon competes with other coupons in the system for the attention of the user. The coupon must be downloaded to the consumer's computer. This means the coupon could be lost if the consumer's hard disk crashes. To redeem the coupon, it must be printed out or electronically transmitted to the merchant. In the Golden et. al. system, it is difficult (if not impossible) for the consumer to redeem the coupon if shopping electronically from a computer other than the computer to which the coupon was downloaded.
Another example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,007 to Jovicic et. al. This patent describes an electronic coupon communication system for generating and redeeming product discount coupons over the Internet. Again, the coupon must be stored on or printed at the user's computer.
Accordingly, there is a need for an incentive program that:    1. encourages users to interact with electronic advertisements that are associated with the present invention;    2. takes minimal time and skill to use;    3. does not require pre-registration;    4. aligns with real-world experiences;    5. is easy to implement;    6. provides easy-to-redeem offers;    7. allows tracking of sales and consumer preferences; and    8. will likely attract significant traffic to participant's website or “place of business”.
There is a similar need for an interactive reward system outside of the Internet environment. For example, there are many different kinds of interactive media, such as, for example, cable TV, digital TV, web TV, interactive kiosks, automated teller machines, in-flight entertainment units, mobile telephones and gaming devices. It is common for advertisements and interactive images to be output in such interactive media. Accordingly, there is also a need for an incentive program that encourages users to interact with such promotions.